A SYMPHONY OF RIVALS

Fiction
Music had become a political instrument

A SYMPHONY OF RIVALS
By Roma Calatayud-Stocks
414 pp. Calumet Editions

Reviewed by Alan Goodman

A Symphony Of Rivals is the second book in a planned trilogy by Calatayud-Stocks. In this story the protagonist, Alejandra Morrison, a young lady possessing an exceptional musical gift as a concert pianist, seeks an opportunity to make a name as a major orchestral conductor in what is traditionally a man’s domain.

The story moves between Minneapolis, the home town of Ms. Morrison, and her medical doctor husband, Richard, to 1933 Berlin, a city experiencing the ominous political currents inspired by the rise of the Nazi party. The story begins in Berlin with Alejandra and Richard riding through the streets of Berlin, and then in their hotel, the famed Adelon in Pariser Platz.

The Nazi presence, crude, ruse and unsettling, makes itself known almost immediately with an encounter in the hotel bar.

A loud disturbance drew her attention. On the other side of where the trio was playing, several men, dressed in brown shirts, were yelling heatedly and nearly drowning out the music. Among them, a jagged-looking man with a gaunt face, narrow eyes, and a pencil mustache, dressed in a black uniform with a swastika armband, stood up upon seeing her. He then shouted to the musicians, “Judenrein, play the ‘Horst Wessel’ song or I’ll shut you for the night.”

The titles for each of the chapters carries a musical theme. Chapter one is, “Rondo Alla Turca.” Chapter eighteen, “A Song In My Heart,” and so on. There follows in that particular chapter, a mention of that piece. Sometimes I could make the thematic connection to the ensuing action ensuing, sometimes not.

The writing is a bit flowery, perhaps slowing the action in the early part of the narrative, eliminating a sense of building tension, despite the hovering political menace. The style hearkens back to an earlier era of novel craft, to maybe Dreiser, who seemed to take his time in explaining what he was about to explain.

The action picks up dramatically, however, in the middle of the book, when Morrison is about to realize her dream of leading a major symphony orchestra in a major musical city on the world’s musical stage. The intrigue that has been (slowly) building up to this moment collides in whirlwind of kidnappings, murders, and asides of devious political manipulations. The book’s title derives from this flurry of action:

Alejandra acknowledged the gravity of the situation on so many levels. For without a doubt, she was living in perilous times where the boundaries between art and politics had vanished, and music had become a political instrument.

It would be a symphony of rivals.

The writing, is good without exhibiting the kind of inspired genius shown by Alejandra Morrison. The story asks a bit of perseverance until about the middle when the characters paths begin to conflict in serious ways. What kept me interested at first – more so than the narrative itself – was the question of, how the brutality of the Nazis could possibly have captivated – if not captured – a highly sophisticated, cultured civilized people as were the Germans.

The strength of this story is not in the writing style, but in the bearing witness to the day-to-day process of personal experience whereby civilization loses its way to the forces of extreme evil, to the enveloping fog of deceit, brutality, murder and mayhem.

The overriding value of storytelling such as this is is to force one to ask the question – “Could it happen here in the United States?” The answer so far, in the spring of 2018, is not altogether comforting.